From then on, any pollutants of their spiritual estate that were discovered were purged away. But as regards the worldly nations, they went on polluting the earthly globe as never before. In spite of this world pollution, behold! a spiritual paradise has been cultivated by Jehovah’s Christian witnesses, under His blessing and to the honor of His name.

Chapter 9

The “Way of Holiness” to the Spiritual Paradise

 1. What grand prospect lay ahead of the Jewish exiles when they left Babylon in 537 B.C.E.?

A LAND like a paradise in a literal sense! This is what the Jewish exiles hoped to make out of their long-desolate homeland, as they departed from Babylon in the year 537 B.C.E. Before them lay the prospect of realizing the fulfillment of the glowing words that the prophet Isaiah had spoken regarding their homeland: “The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron. Without fail it will blossom, and it will really be joyful with joyousness and with glad crying out. The glory of Lebanon itself must be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and of Sharon. There will be those who will see the glory of Jehovah, the splendor of our God.”​—Isaiah 35:1, 2.

 2. How had God given them assurance of a safe, successful return to their homeland?

² With such a grand prospect before them, how heart-satisfying it must have felt to the liberated Jewish remnant and their loyal companions when they got on the march out of Babylon and were really homeward bound! Comfortingly, they were assured from God that he would make a special way for them for a safe, successful return to their longed-for homeland. To this effect were his words by his prophet Isaiah: “And there will certainly come to be a highway there, even a way; and the Way of Holiness it will be called. The unclean one will not pass over it. And it will be for the one walking on the way, and no foolish ones will wander about on it. No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk there.”​—Isaiah 35:8, 9.

 3. (a) What made Babylon, from which the Jews were departing, religiously unclean? (b) How was the way back to the land of Judah to be, in fact, a “Way of Holiness”?

³ Pagan Babylon, to which the surviving Jews had been deported after Jerusalem’s destruction in 607 B.C.E., was religiously unclean, unholy. Its land was filled with idols and temples of false worship. The homeland to which the liberated Jews were to return was to be a religiously clean ground, a holy land, for there the temple of Jehovah God was to be rebuilt on its original site and the repeopled province of Judah was to be a land where the pure worship of the one living and true God flourished. Certainly, then, the way back had to be a “Way of Holiness” in fact, and not in name only. The returnees using this God-provided way had to have a holy motivation, that of restoring to their long-desolate homeland the clean worship of the God of Holiness. That was the main reason why they had been released from Babylon.​—Ezra 1:1-4.

 4. (a) In what way would it prove true that, as foretold, “the unclean one will not pass over it”? (b) What special obligation did Governor Zerubbabel and High Priest Joshua have in this regard?

⁴ “The unclean one will not pass over it.” An Israelite unclean with Babylonian religious contamination would have no rightful passage on the Sacred Way back to Judah and Jerusalem. Nothing of a Babylonish religious nature was to be carried back with him to be transplanted on the holy soil where exclusive devotion to Jehovah God was to prevail. The divine command to those who were carrying back the holy utensils for restoration to Jehovah’s temple that was to be rebuilt in Jerusalem was: “Turn away, turn away, get out of there, touch nothing unclean; get out from the midst of her [Babylon], keep yourselves clean, you who are carrying the utensils of Jehovah.” (Isaiah 52:11) The worship of Jehovah does not mix agreeably with Babylonian false religion. So the Way of Holiness must not be defiled by an apostate Israelite who would scheme to introduce Babylonish idolatrous religion into the restored homeland. And the Jewish governor, Zerubbabel, and the Aaronic high priest, Joshua (or, Jeshua), who would be in charge of the march back to the province of Judah, were obliged to see to it that no apostate, evil-designing Israelite should accompany the truly repentant, clean-hearted remnant back to Jerusalem.

 5. Who is spoken of in Isaiah 35:8 as “the one walking on the way”?

⁵ “And it will be for the one walking on the way.” Who could that be? It could never prove to be an unclean person, who is excluded from passing over the way. Since the way in which this one must walk is the Way of Holiness, it must be the individual who is living up to Jehovah’s holiness, who is seeking to be holy just as He is holy. (Leviticus 11:44, 45) Of course, Jehovah himself was the One who was going ahead of the liberated Israelites whose faces were set toward the holy mountain of worship at Jerusalem, and He outstandingly would be The One walking on the way; never would He walk on an unholy way or lead His people on an unholy way. (Isaiah 52:12) Necessarily, those following on the way after him need to be holy like Him, not touching the unclean things pertaining to false Babylonish religion.

 6, 7. Who are the “foolish ones” who were not to be permitted to wander on the Way of Holiness?

⁶ This fact is further proved by the next sentence identifying the one who is debarred from the Way of Holiness: “And no foolish ones will wander about on it.” (Isaiah 35:8) By the designation “foolish” here is not meant one who is just silly, inexperienced, ignorantly doing what is unwise. He is, rather, the perverse fool, the one who is stubbornly committed to the course of unwisdom.

⁷ Jehovah gave a true description of this kind of foolish person, when He said to the prophet Jeremiah: “My people is foolish. Of me they have not taken note. They are unwise sons; and they are not those having understanding. Wise they are for doing bad, but for doing good they actually have no knowledge.” (Jeremiah 4:22) Because of their ingrained, persistent foolishness they suffered the desolating of Judah and Jerusalem and their deportation to the pagan land of Babylon. So now, on the return of the faithful remnant to their desolated homeland, such “foolish” ones were not to be permitted to wander about freely on the Highway of Holiness, nor to stray in upon it.

 8. As shown in Isaiah 35:9, from what else were the Jews promised freedom en route back to their homeland?

⁸ Not only would there be freedom from contact with such undesirable elements on the road back to their homeland far off from religiously polluted Babylon, but no wild, flesh-eating beasts would lie in wait alongside the road to prey upon the ones using that way back to Jehovah’s favor. The divine promise was: “No lion will prove to be there, and the rapacious sort of wild beasts will not come up on it. None will be found there; and the repurchased ones must walk there.”​—Isaiah 35:9.

 9. Was this a promise of safety only against animal attack, or what?

⁹ Thus no man-eating wild beasts would infest the Way of Holiness. If no such dangerous animals add terror to the way back to Jehovah’s worship in His chosen land, then no beastlike men or packs of men would be allowed to leap out suddenly and raid the line of marchers, to plunder and to kill. So there should be no fear in the hearts of the liberated remnant of Jehovah’s people about setting out on the return journey over the way that He provided. Courageously, and with full trust in Almighty God, there was a remnant that volunteered to pioneer the way. As it was written: “And the repurchased ones must walk there.”

10. Why had these people been “sold” to the Babylonians, and on what basis were they being “repurchased”?

¹⁰ These were the ones repurchased, redeemed, by Jehovah God. Because of disobedience to Him and rebellion against his pure worship, the people of the kingdom of Judah had been “sold” to the Babylonians for deportation to the land of their captors. Long before their deportation to Babylon, Jehovah had said to them: “Which one of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you people? Look! Because of your own errors you have been sold, and because of your own transgressions your mother has been sent away.” Also: “For this is what Jehovah has said: ‘It was for nothing that you people were sold, and it will be without money that you will be repurchased.’” (Isaiah 50:1; 52:3) That is to say, Jehovah did not get any personal benefit from selling them to the Babylonians, nor does he receive any material benefit from repurchasing them from the land of their captors, their Babylonian masters.

A LIBERATION NOT PAID FOR

11. Were the Babylonians paid in some way when God took possession of his chosen people again?

¹¹ The deported Jews did not pay Jehovah any money for him to repurchase them, neither did they pay money to the Babylonians to buy back their own freedom. It was Jehovah that unselfishly bought them back from the consequences of their own errors and transgressions. He did not owe the Babylonians anything for having taken captive his people and removing them from their God-given land. So He did not have to pay the Babylonians to take possession of His chosen people once again, except to pay vengeance to the Babylonians for their depredations against his holy city Jerusalem and its temple and its throne of